KARACHI: An old paint bucket or IgheeI tin filled with sand to hold the sticks and poles with those fluttering green crescent and star banners, a small table covered with a white cloth with pins, badges, stickers, buntings, bracelets, caps, etc. Yes, it’s that time of the year again when you’ll find Independence Day memorabilia sellers almost at every corner of every street.

Other than the caps, this year there are also safari-type solar hats made of plastic, long gloves and a variety of T-shirts. The plastic hats are priced around Rs100 each, the gloves Rs80 and T-shirts Rs150 each. Some badges with flashing LED lights are selling for Rs100 while the plain ones are for Rs20 each. The bunting of some 20 small flags are also for Rs20 each.

The flags, of course, as always are of the right shade of green and the wrong ones as well. The crescent and star, too, are not always the correct size or proportionate with the size of the flag. “They are made in China,” says Mohammad Asif pointing to the forest green flags on his left, priced at Rs350 each. “And these are made in Pakistan,” he says gesturing towards the proper shade of deep green flags, the biggest of which he is asking Rs1,200 for.

Hearing the difference in prices a mother with a couple of kids moves towards the left. “But that’s the wrong colour and with time it may fade to become even lighter, who knows,” points out the older of her children.

Ignoring the voice of reason, the mother still buys the made-in-China flag. “What if the dark one bleeds colour in the rain. It always rains on Aug 14. This is imported, be it from China, it must be better quality,” the mother replies before making up her mind and convincing her kids.

Mohammad Asif, who works as a salesman at a mini-mart in the Defence Housing Authority Phase-II commercial area during the day, says that the days leading to Aug 14 help supplement his income. “During the day when I’m at my job, my wife comes with our baby to mind our little roadside business here on Korangi Road. I, too, join her after 6pm,” he says.

Asked where they get the memorabilia from, Asif says they pick what they think would sell well from around the Lighthouse near the City Courts. “We get it at wholesale rates from the Paper Market. We also don’t have to pay immediately for it. We can do that later after selling the things. But what’s left they don’t usually take back. Right then or later, we still have to pay for everything we took to sell at our stall,” he says.

Among the most popular items are the flag buntings, of course. Then come the small flags for flying on cars. “Usually, when you buy a flag, you bring it out every year to fly on your terrace or balcony. It is more like something you invest in. So people don’t come to buy the big flags unless they lose the one they had at home or something else happens to it.

“The smaller flags that they fly on cars or motorbikes are often lost or confiscated by traffic police so they sell better.

But the buntings, made from string and paper flags, cannot be reused again and again. They also tear up in the wind or when it’s raining,” points out Samina, a matric student minding another one of such memorabilia stalls in Clifton with her younger brother, Ashraf.

Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2015

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